Zeus : a study in ancient religion - Warburg Institute

Omphalos and Pillar 167
supported. It could therefore be attributed either to the earthmother
or to the sky-father, according as the worship of the goddess
or the god prevailed.
We shall hardly expect to find chapter and verse for all this in
e.xtant Greek literature. Crude notions are not always articulate
and comparatively seldom emerge on the literary level. We must
be satisfied with stray hints and glimpses: pieced together they
may tell their tale. Of the cosmic tree there is good evidence which
would merit further investigation \ Our concern is now with the
cosmic pillar. W. H. Roscher in a recent monograph- has shown
that the Greeks, like many other peoples, conceived of the earth as
a flat disk with a central point called its omphalos or ' navel,' and
further that within the limits of Greece a variety of towns claimed
to possess this all-important centre. He makes out a case not only
for Delphoi, but also for other ApoUine seats— Branchidai, Delos,
Gryneion, Patara, etc. Among possible claimants he includes By-
zantion^ but without proving the existence of a Byzantine omphalos.
Proof, however, is forthcoming. Coppers of this town struck in the
third or second century B.C. have sometimes as obverse type a lau-
reate head of Apollon and as reverse an Agyieus-'^Wizx set on the
top of an omphalos, which is covered with its net-work or agrenon
(figs. Ill— 113)^. This monument has been plausibly explained by
Fig. III. Fig. ii?. Fig. 113.
W. Drexler^ as the obelisk of Apollon Karinos, who is known to
^ I have broached the subject in Folk- Lore 1904 xv. 291 — 299.
- W. H. Roscher Omphalos (Abh. d. sacks. Gesellsch. d. Wiss. Phil. -hist. Classe 1913
xxix. 9. 20 ff.) Leipzig 1913 p. 20 ff. ^ Id. ib. p. 36, n. 66.
* Fig. i\\=Ant. Miinz. Berlin Taurische Chersonesus, etc i. 147
f. a specimen from
the Prokesch collection (rev. BYIANT ETTI MATPIKHN obelisk), op. Mionnet
Descr. de vi^d. ant. Suppl. ii. 241 no. 215, 243 no. 229, Anson Num. Gr. v. 14 no. 91,
Head Hist. num^. p. 268 f.
Fig. ii2=J. N. Svoronos in the 'EnKPI obelisk), cp.
Mionnet Descr. de nu'd. ant. i. 377 no. 94, Anson Num. Gr. v. 14 no. 90.
' W. Drexler in the Zeitschr.f. Num. 1895 xix. 128 f., cp. Num. Chron. Third Series
1893 xiii. 233.